{"id":13141,"date":"2015-05-17T18:07:50","date_gmt":"2015-05-17T22:07:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/?p=13141"},"modified":"2015-05-17T18:13:51","modified_gmt":"2015-05-17T22:13:51","slug":"china-reduced-co2-emissions-by-8-in-4-months","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/china-reduced-co2-emissions-by-8-in-4-months.html","title":{"rendered":"China reduced CO2 emissions by 8% in 4 months"},"content":{"rendered":"

\r\nThe carbon bubble is popping faster than most people imagined,\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nand renewable sun, wind, and water power is taking over.\r\n

\r\nAri Phillips, ThinkProgress, 15 May 2015,\r\n\r\nIt Only Took Four Months For China To Achieve A Jaw-Dropping Reduction In Carbon Emissions<\/a>,\r\n

\r\n

\r\nChina is the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter, so small\r\ndecreases in its emissions seem like monumental feats when compared\r\nto other countries. According to a new analysis<\/a>, in the first four\r\nmonths of 2015, China’s coal use fell almost 8 percent compared to\r\nthe same period last year — a reduction in emissions that’s\r\napproximately equal to the total carbon dioxide emissions of the\r\nU.K. over the same period.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nThe analysis, published by Greenpeace and Energydesk China, reviewed\r\ndata from a number of sources, including China’s industrial output,\r\nand found that China had reduced its coal output by 6.1 percent in\r\nthe first four months of 2015. The research team calculated that the\r\ndrop in coal use translates into a nearly 5 percent drop in domestic\r\nCO2 emissions.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nLauri Myllyvirta, an analyst who worked on the Greenpeace report,\r\ntold RTCC that the report shows that China’s industrial output and\r\nthermal power generation are falling while renewable energy sources\r\nlike hydro, wind, and solar are growing fast.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nNiall McCarthy, Forbes, 12 May 2015,\r\n\r\nChina’s Revolution In Wind Energy [Infographic]<\/a>,\r\n\r\n\r\n

\r\n

\r\nBack in 2010, China became the world’s largest wind energy producer\r\nand the boom is continuing unabated, fuelled by government support\r\nand ambitious renewable energy targets. Data from the China Wind\r\nEnergy Association (CWEA) revealed that wind energy surpassed\r\nnuclear for the very first time in 2012 to become the country’s\r\nthird largest source of electricity, after coal and hydro-electric\r\npower.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\n

\r\nThat article says China’s economy may start growing faster,\r\nbut coal use won’t go back up, because China is capping coal use,\r\nwhile wind and solar power keep going up; especially solar.\r\n(It adds that India just agreed with China on a similar path.)\r\n

\r\nSo in China it’s Coal #1, Water #2, and Wind #3.\r\nNext:\r\n

\r\nPete Danko, EarthTechling, 26 April 2015,\r\n\r\nCHINA SOLAR POWER SURGES: LEAVES ENTIRE WORLD BEHIND<\/a>,\r\n

\r\n

\r\nChina is now at 33.12 GW. If it hits the official 2015 target of\r\n17.8 GW, China this year will soar past Germany — at 38.2 GW\r\nbut expected to add only around 2 GW in 2015 — and claim the\r\ntop spot in global solar. In its 2011-15 five-year plan for solar,\r\nChina had been aiming to get to 35 GW by the end of this year, but\r\nit now appears likely to land as much as 10 GW above that figure….\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nWhat’s driving solar growth in China? While in the United States and\r\nother Western countries the discussion centers on climate change,\r\nChina has a motivations that are perhaps less abstract: Domestic\r\ninstallations support its vast solar manufacturing capacity and\r\nfossil fuel-generation is a major factor in its desperate pollution\r\nproblems.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nSo the same thing will happen in China as in the U.S.: solar power will overtake\r\neven wind power.\r\nI don’t know how long that will take in China,\r\nbut in the U.S. in less than another eight years,\r\nas predicted two years ago and borne out by solar deployment more than doubling every two years<\/a>.\r\nNow acellerated by the burgeoning battery market<\/a>.\r\nThe only real impediment is fracking-driven methane pipelines to LNG export.\r\nAnybody betting on fracking better watch out for fracking bans, as more states and countries\r\ncatch on that poisoned water, increased earthquakes, and land takings aren’t worth promises of jobs that don’t materialize.\r\nSolar power has none of those problems.\r\n

\r\nMeanwhile, electric vehicles are already ramping up to replace the internal\r\ncombustion engine.\r\nThat last may take another decade.\r\nOr less.\r\n

\r\nRemember, Henry Ford introduced his assembly line in 1914, and it only\r\ntook a few years for cars to mostly replace horses and buggies.\r\nSure, there’s a far vaster fossil fuel, electricity, and transportation\r\ninfrasture in place now, but Ford couldn’t keep reducing the price of\r\na Model T year after year, and solar power does continue to decrease in price,\r\neven after solar is already cheaper than every other power source.\r\n

\r\nAndrew Nikiforuk, Resilience, 15 March 2013,\r\n\r\nThe Big Shift Last Time: From Horse Dung to Car Smog<\/a>,\r\n

\r\n

\r\n“There were winners and losers,” says Ann Norton Greene, a U.S.\r\nhistorian at the University of Pennsylvania, whose remarkable book,\r\nHorses At Work, offers a fascinating portrait of how messy energy\r\ntransitions can be.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n“You can’t change the conditions of a system without damaging a lot\r\nof people, business, practices and habits that go with it,” says\r\nGreene. “People lose not from some fault of their own, but because\r\nthey are in the wrong place in history.”\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nIf you’re an organization still betting on fossil fuels in 2015,\r\nyou’re going to lose, because you’re on the wrong side of history.\r\n

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